"Robin Natanel picks up a compact black pistol, barrel pointed down range. Gripping the gun with both hands, she raises the semi-automatic and methodically squeezes off five shots. If the target were a person's head or heart, he'd probably be dead.

Natanel is a Buddhist and self-avowed "spiritual person," a 53-year-old divorcee who lives alone in a liberal-leaning suburb near Boston. She's a tai chi instructor who invokes the benefits of meditation. And at least twice a month, she takes her German-made Walther PK380 to a shooting range and blazes away.

Natanel is one of a growing number of people in groups once considered anti-handgun - women, liberals, gays and college kids - who have been buying weapons. They are part of a national trend: Domestic handgun production and imports more than doubled over four years to about 4.6 million in 2009, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

The surge has been propelled by shifting politics and demographics that have made it easier and more acceptable than at any time in 75 years for Americans to buy and carry handguns. Post-9/11 fears seem to be a factor, as are the pro-gun politicking of the National Rifle Association and the marketing, particularly to women, by handgun manufacturers. Events like the Dec. 8 fatal shootings on the Virginia Tech University campus reinforce a feeling that the world is an unsafe place, even as violent U.S. crime rates fall...."